I Need a Good CODEC for Editing Purposes...

[dennisparrott]

I'm not sure that this is the right place within the forum but... here goes.

My goal is to be able to extract the video I burned on a DVD-R and be able to take the result file back into my editing package and do some more work on it. (For the record I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio, poor man's Vegas -- it works OK for what I want to do...) The easy thing to do would be simply recapture the source but being sort of hard-headed (and looking down the road at some future projects I want to do) I decided that "hey, if you can rip a DVD and reburn it, why can't I extract the video and audio and re-edit it?". Seems like you should be able to....

Well, after reading plenty of how-to guides, I have been able to rip the DVD with a couple of tools -- DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter. So far so good. I then figured out how to get DVD2AVI working and I could convert the VOB data into something else. (I extrapolated from a guide that showed how to turn the VOB into XviD format.)

My first run of DVD2AVI I used "Uncompressed (full frames)" as the compression choice. I got some nice looking video and a WAV file that I could take back into Vegas M.S. and I was able to load the pieces and get an output file that did not have any audio-video sync problems. GREAT! or so I thought...

The problem was that the uncompressed output was HUGE. I have 30 files on my disk, all 2GB large and I did not have the entire 1h 11m video converted!!!! GACK...

So I tried to use a codec I bought from Morgan Multimedia. It produced a nice file size in pretty reasonable time and it looked like doggy-doo... Blocky and nasty and, well, ugh.

I also tried using the Cinepak codec that is on my machine and DVD2AVI reported that it would require DAYS to encode the video. That is clearly unacceptable... I can understand it taking several hours to encode something but not several days...

So here is what I think I need: I need a codec that will work with DVD2AVI and will spit out a file that I can edit easily, is of reasonable size (13GB per hour would be an upper limit since that it what my captures tend to be...) and doesn't take days to produce. I know, simple request that really isn't that simple...

I would be willing to spend some money to purchase said codec or software -- I don't necessarily expect to get it for free. I won't say price is no object though. This is a hobby for me, not a profession...

Thanks in advance for whatever help anyone can give me on this... Now if I can find enough caffiene to allow me read every last scrap of info on this site...

dennis parrott

[Neo Neko]

When it comes to MJPEG I believe that the Pegasis codec is one of the better ones. http://members.shaw.ca/wenpigsfly/smileys/thumb.gif But have you tried huffyuv? http://img93.exs.cx/img93/604/cotilleo2tj.gif It's freehttp://img116.exs.cx/img116/1912/t7xhappy.gif, smaller than uncompressedhttp://img117.exs.cx/img117/5601/n1qshok.gif, a bit larger than Mjpeg, but lossless. Meaning you can edit to your hearts delight.http://img117.exs.cx/img117/7793/g9bok.gif

[AlexeyS]

Could you give link to this loseless codec?
I've donwload it, but there are a lot of bugs (I think I found old version).

[Neo Neko]

There are multiple versions. The VFW codec, the directshow version that is part of ffdshow, and the standalone exe version in FFMPEG. Always remember Google and forum search are your friend.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=huffyuv&btnG=Google+Search

[eidenk]

The Ace MegaCodec Pack Pro 6.0.3 (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Encoders-Converter-DIVX-Related/ACE-Mega-CoDecS-Pack.shtml) contains :

AVImszh
AVIzlib
CamStudio Lossless
TechSmith Screen Capture
PicVideo Lossless Jpeg
Huff

Additionally there is :

MSU Lossless Video Codec (http://www.compression.ru/video/ls-codec/index_en.html)
MidVid Jpeg Video Codec (http://www.midivid.com/codec/download.html)
Lagarith Codec (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Lagarith_Lossless_Video_Codec.htm)

[BruceL]

@dennisparrott
I use Pegasus PICVideo M-JPEG Codec v3 with good success.
The web page for it is as follows:
http://www.pegasusimaging.com/picvideomjpeg.htm
It is $28 for non-commercial use. You mentioned having purchased Morgan. Pegasus offers a competitive upgrade for $14.
- Hope this helps! :)

[dennisparrott]

Thanks all for the good ideas!

After I posted this, I came across a solution myself which worked for an unstated purpose. I used a DivX codec that was on my system to write the video stream out of DVD2AVI and was able to marry the audio and video files from DVD2AVI in Sony Vegas Movie Studio with no _apparent_ audio/video "slippage". People in the video talked and their lips moved in sync! Using Sony Vegas MS I could write out a file of whatever other type I wanted.

I *did not* try to edit the DivX video within Vegas MS.

I will take a look at those other codec choices and see how well they facilitate editing. I appreciate the suggestions.

One thing that did happen is I've made up my mind to replace my current "video editing machine" (a 900MHz Athlon system) and will be getting a fast P4-based box Real Soon Now. Waiting 5-7+ hours for DVD2AVI to spit out a couple of files is just not tolerable...and that is for the more reasonable codecs. I got results of 2+ _days_ for one codec! (Whoa. I'd have to be desperate for that bit of video!)

Thanks again for the tips. I will try some of them and post the results as I get some time.

dennis

[dennisparrott]

Originally posted by Neo Neko
There are multiple versions. The VFW codec, the directshow version that is part of ffdshow, and the standalone exe version in FFMPEG. Always remember Google and forum search are your friend.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=huffyuv&btnG=Google+Search

I am a tad confused about the tradeoffs between a Video for Windows version, a DirectShow version and a standalone version... Why 3 versions? Couldn't there one "unified" version?

I haven't looked around yet but do you know of something that explains what the difference is and why I should choose one vs.another or whether I should maybe load all 3 versions or ????

Codecs are a Communist plot to sap productivity!! ;^) I am having a hard time getting a grip on this part of the architecture...

TIA,

dennis

[trevlac]

Originally posted by dennisparrott
I am a tad confused about the tradeoffs between a Video for Windows version, a DirectShow version and a standalone version... Why 3 versions?
....

Codecs are a Communist plot to sap productivity!! ;^) I am having a hard time getting a grip on this part of the architecture...


It's a Microsoft plot ! :)

Video for Windows is the old way video worked under Windows. Some applications work with this architecture and need a codec that fits into this architecture. Microsoft provides a (built in i believe) "wrapper" that allows DirectShow codec to work with VFW applications. But it does not tend to support all the functionality of a codec.

DirectShow is the new way video works under Windows. Applications that use the DirectShow architecture need a DirectShow codec.

Stand Alone .... I would guess this means that the codec "program" comes with some xtra bits that allow you to input some video and output it to a file using the given codec. A built in limited re-compression app.

----------

PS: I'm no expert. But I believe it works this way.

[MarcN]

According to the Vegas Movie Studio website the software is able to import MPEG2 video. So why don’t you just demux video and audio from the VOBs with DGIndex (v1.3.0 beta)? Maybe Vegas is even capable of working with Avisynth-scripts so you can framserve the VOBs to it without creating any large, intermediary files.

Marc

[dennisparrott]

Originally posted by MarcN
According to the Vegas Movie Studio website the software is able to import MPEG2 video. So why don’t you just demux video and audio from the VOBs with DGIndex (v1.3.0 beta)? Maybe Vegas is even capable of working with Avisynth-scripts so you can framserve the VOBs to it without creating any large, intermediary files.

Marc

Well, there were some issues (can't remember what they were -- doggone CRS disease *) with the MPEG-2 I had gotten. Vegas MS didn't like them or they ended up with audio/video sync problems (lips moving, no sound to match).

As for DGIndex, I hadn't gotten to that tool yet.

As for Avisynth, well, that one is also on list of things to explore as well.

Now don't think I'm some slacker here! I end up stubbing my toes on some problem and then setting to the task of solving my problem. As it stands, I have a solution method that gets me most of the way to where I want to go but it is slow on my creaky old 900MHz box and some of the codecs I have on my system just make that slow time go nonlinear!

As soon as the job running on that box finishes up (it is emptying the Tivo of all of the episodes of 24 & South Park which will take until tomorrow evening...) I intend to take a DVD, rip it to the H/D and then methodically test every codec I have and several suggested by the members here for the time it takes to do a few minutes of video, whether it will load in the packages I have, are there audio/video sync issues, and so on. I figure that the results will be informative and maybe some of the other folks will want to help out by taking those output files and loading them into other packages I don't have...

More later... and the Tivo job reports that there are 21 hours and 55 minutes to go to get all my data copied over... That machine will be useless until tomorrow!

dennis

- CRS == Can't Remember Sh*t

[wonderboss]

Hi Dennis --

Did you ever get a good enough answer on this to guide a total newbie? I'm pretty ignorant -- in fact, I don't even know what a CODEC is -- but I've got the same problem you started out with.

I've got a standard (but public domain) DVD I want to reedit. I have DVDShrink, Vegas Movie Studio 4.0, and DVD Architect Studio 2.0. I want to take the VOBs into Vegas, cut them, and burn the product onto a standard DVD-R without dropping too much quality.

Possible you could summarize your solutions in such a way that a dummy like me might stumble his way through? (Or maybe provide a link?)

Thanks for humoring me...

[MarcN]

@wonderboss: If you just want to make a linear cut of the video you could use cuttermaran (after ripping and demuxing). That way you would not have to re-encode the video and lose quality.

[wonderboss]

Thanx Mark. If by a "linear cut" you mean just a straight re-editing of the video stream (with a .wav of audio laid over the top) then yes, that is exactly what I'm trying to do and no more. But the audio is in a different language (taken from a different original source) and I was hoping to uses Vegas' fairly nifty editing interface to match picture and sound easily. Is cuttermaran another, different editing software -- or something than will turn the VOBs into a format I can cut in Vegas?

[MarcN]

Sorry for replying so late.

Cuttermaran is a free editing software for MPEG-2 files. You can download it from the Doom9 Homepage (under Digital TV). It also allows you to load external audio tracks and cut them together with the video.

If your source is a VOB-File you have to demux it first (thats seperating the video from the audio). I would recommend DGIndex for it. For more on that look into the DGIndex section of this forum or use the search function.

Marc.